Jonathan Birge

I’m currently a grad student at MIT, in the Quantum Electronics and Ultrafast Optics group. I have lots of opinions. If they stay inside my head, I’ll probably explode. It’s either this, or ranting to my wife. So, this will probably save my marriage. The benefit to you, however, is questionable.

There is no central theme. I write about anything that strikes me as potentially interesting. Hopefully, if you like some of the sames things I do (physics, economics, aviation, photography, computing, philosophy, music, politics) and I have a few good days here and there, you’ll find the occasional post interesting or maybe useful.

I also pledge to avoid the use of meaninglessly vague, divisive labels such as “liberal”, “The Left”, “Right-wing religious nutjob” and “Yale graduate.” I will stick to complaints and praise of specific issues and people, and will resist try to resist the temptation to turn everything into a polemic. This will undoubtedly hurt my chances of gaining any readership, as I’ll probably offend everybody at some point, and won’t have the advantage of having labeled a Right Wing or Left Wing blog.

For the record, if I had to pick a political stance, I’d say I’m a pragmatic moderate social libertarian. (If you’d like to hear about libertarian philosophy from a person not currently living in a shack in Montana, please read Bastiat’s pamphlet ”The Law.” It should dispell some of the usual strawmen thrown at libertarians.)

Regardless, I don’t think our country is in peril due to liberals or conservatives or the religious right. I think we’re fighting a force much more universal and sinister than any ideology: Entropy. Stability begets instability, empires grow complacent and fall, power corrupts, and democracy is always in danger of turning into a lazy tyranny of the majority. Running a society takes intelligent people making intelligent decisions based on mundane specifics, not sweeping ideology. The question is not which party is running the show, but how many intelligent people of integrity are in each. I think you can trace many of our problems to the likelihood that the number isn’t good on either side of the isle. But make no mistake. We are in peril.

Comments are always appreciated. Even just a simple, thoughtful “you suck” at the end of a post would make my day.